


Dancing with the Scent of Time

by Dame_Syrup (mary_pseud)



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Don't copy to other sites, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 14:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19993393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mary_pseud/pseuds/Dame_Syrup
Summary: For the kinkmeme prompt: Doctor/other main character, preferably the Master. Exoticism. Harems, Arabian Nights.





	Dancing with the Scent of Time

The scent-honeyed smoke rose around him

Incense fuming from bronze vessels

Wrapping coloured ribbons of vital essences around his limbs

He lay sprawled on velvet cushions

Gold embroidery prickling his bare skin

The tent was dim and hung with velvet scrolls

Words wrote themselves across them and then vanished

He had no will to read them; instead

He watched the dancers in the golden lantern light

Bare-legged and bare-breasted

Bells dancing on toes and fingers and hair

Flesh white or black or furred or scaled

So many races, all their faces the same

Wearing behind a false smile

The misery of slavery

The smoke went up forever

The dancing never stopped

"Now, now" and a familiar voice:

Short hair, mad eyes – the Master;

"Come and taste," and the taste was spiced dates

It was sweet wine and dark chocolate and long, slow kisses

Kisses that wore a path from his lips to his groin

Hot mouth coaxing him to erection

"Not in front of them," he tried to speak

Smoke stopped his throat; a tongue opened his flesh

He felt that tongue delving through him, like a fish

Swimming through a sea of stones, darting

From liver to lungs and finally

Tasting his hearts' blood

"Look at them, see for yourself," the other whispered

He looked at the slave at his feet and tried to scream

Golden hair in arched braids

Great painted eyes and golden skin

The voluptuous body of Death Herself

The Fendhal knelt and kissed his feet

Her crushed hands limp and powerless

On the silken carpets

"All of them, every one, can be under your command!"

The Master's touch was slow, then fast on his limp flesh

"The Daleks, the Sontarans, all of them – broken!

Broken by us, and remade into - anything!"

I do not want to break them, he thought.

I want to see the Universe, not rule it.

"It's much too late for that, dear Doctor;

The healing sometimes requires the surgeon's knife.

Cut the cancer of evil from the stars

Let them burn brighter in your eyes

Your eyes – how I missed them –"

He reached up and touched the Master's face

Peeled back his skin like it was crackling paper

Behind was a beard, and eyes both black and golden

Fangs, then tears in those blazing eyes

"You see me as I was - and you?"

He stretched the Doctor apart, fibre from fibre

Teasing out threads of curling hair, agile hands

Twisting and braiding him together: so

As they had met before, so long ago

On a world like a green-blue pearl sailing through the stars

White hair, hooked nose

The tired eyes of a lost prince.

"This is you,"

"They are all me," he interrupted.

"But this – this is how I dream of you...

How I want to spend forever with you!"

A kiss, a hot fanged mouth pressed to his.

"Drink with me, and we shall live eternal,

Together and one, burning like the heart of time

But wait – but wait – for the last dance..."

They brought the last dancer forth on a litter

Pale shaved skin and long muscles leaping

As he rolled to his feet and danced

Gilt flashed from his eyelids, his soles

And his gem-starred groin

He was beautiful, beautiful as life

The last dancer spun, his hair sparkling

His hands caressed the slaves around him

Now pinching a red-tipped breast

Now feathering over a taut bare arse

He spun, he leaped, he fell to the Doctor's feet,

He leaned close, and whispered,

"Be careful what you drink."

"We drink!" the Master cried, and the slaves cried too

"We drink! The last dance and the last drink!"

They brought him a tray bearing a thousand cups

A thousand aromas rose to his nostrils

Bitter and salt, sour and strong

"Taste," the Master implored him.

"Taste this, taste me, and we will live forever."

The Doctor looked at the slave who bore the tray

Even while the other slaves

Set the velvet draperies afire

Poured poison into their own mouths

And embraced silver blades with their flesh

Blood ran over the carpets

The incense boiled and vanished

And the last cup bearer, with skin of porcelain

Whispered, "I recommend the coffee."

The last dancer cut his throat, and he died.

The Doctor reached for a cup

A dark and steaming cup

The scent of bitter oils and dark nectar

He drank, and the Master screamed

And all the world poured itself down his throat

And died within him

And he died, and thought: when I die

They shall all pass out of me,

And live again.

Good.

* * *

The Doctor woke, this time in a hotel bed. "What?" he shouted, sitting upright, only to be pushed back onto the bed by a man in a dark suit.

He stopped for an instant, and stared at the man. Dark suit, pink shirt, pale – "Wait, I know you. Who are you?"

"Ianto Jones. I work for-"

"Torchwood, but don't hold that against him." Captain Jack Harkness rose from the other side of the bed, and pressed his hand to the Doctor's shoulder with a little too much familiarity.

"Knowing you, Jack, you'll do all the holding against," the Doctor groused. Then his hands leaped to his face, feeling his brows, his sideburns, his nose. He shook himself free from the wires coiled around his head, and scuttled barefoot to the mirror.

Dark hair, dark eyes – all right, the same. Not – changed.

"What happened?" he finally asked, turning to Jack.

"You tell me. We followed an energy signal and found you strapped into that thing," Jack answered, indicating the machine now sprawled in coils over and around the head of the bed. It looked like circuit boards joined at random with wires, and hooked to an array of batteries, but there was something about the equipment...it was not from Earth, that was certain.

"It's some sort of telepathic amplifier, we think," Jack continued. "We couldn't wake you, disconnecting or moving you seemed dangerous-"

"So we slept on it." Ianto blinked innocently after delivering this statement.

"More to the point, we put ourselves into an artificial sleep state, and tried to contact you."

"Jack, that was – you have no idea of how dangerous that was, do you?"

"It worked."

"It did. Sort of." The Doctor sat at the foot of the bed, gingerly, staring at the machine. "It was a dream, sort of; almost poetry. Something out of Arabian Nights. All tents and slaves, and someone – peeling me apart and putting me back together."

He frowned at Ianto. "And you offered me coffee. That – seemed to end it."

"Ianto's coffee is the beginning and the end of many an adventure," Jack purred. Then his face grew grim. "But I think you can identify at least part of this machine, Doctor."

He rose, and looked where Jack's finger pointed, and his skin grew cold. Fastened into the heart of the machine was a ring, a ring embossed with the circles and lines of Gallifreyan script.

"I know that ring," Jack whispered. "I distinctly remember someone punching me in the face while wearing it. It-"

"Jack-"

"It left marks, little circular-"

"Jack!"

Jack breathed, in and out, and forced his anger down. "All right. But here it is: the Master's ring. And I don't think he set it up in this machine by himself, do you?"

"No." The Doctor slumped. "So I guess I have to go find out who did it, and why."

He shot a glance at Jack. "Care to join me?"

"You're on," Jack grinned.


End file.
